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Review: Puppy (King's Head Theatre)

Review by Izzy Tierney

 

⭐️⭐️⭐️

 

The latest offering at King's Head Theatre begins in the Princess Di Memorial Car Park, where we meet our characters engaging in their shared hobby of dogging, something they describe as “mostly social”. It's a bold opening, and it only gets bolder from there in this unapologetically sex-positive political comedy, Puppy.



When Maya arrives at her weekly dogging meet up, she finds Jaz, a new girl who has sought her out after crushing on her from afar at her part time library job. Jaz quickly becomes part of the group and the two begin both a relationship and their own feminist porn company, Violet Lake, but as Maya begins to experience fame and success, her relationship with Jaz becomes strained. When new legislation threatens the existence of Violet Lake and sexual freedom as a whole, Maya organises a face-sitting protest outside Parliament to fight for their rights in a show that celebrates strong female characters.

 

Written by Naomi Westerman, the script is funny and full of wit, with many creative puns and murder mystery erotica titles adding to the fun, lighthearted aspect of the show. It doesn't shy away from the very serious nature at the core of the play though, with some uncomfortable grounding moments discussing issues such as paedophilia and the exploitation of women in the porn industry. It's crucial that the balance between lighthearted and serious is carefully maintained, something Westerman succeeds at achieving, and although a few moments do become a tad Ted Talky, the message of the show is always clear, passionate and purposeful.

 


The weaker part of the book is the relationship between Jaz and Maya. Outside of their sexualities and sex lives, we don't really get to learn an awful lot about them as individuals or a couple, leaving some of the more emotional final scenes between them feeling unearned. The version of Puppy at King's Head Theatre is a shortened one, so cutting a few unnecessary scenes, like the French lessons, would have been beneficial, but mostly I just wish the full play was presented, as a longer running time would have meant more development of the characters and their relationship, allowing the audience to truly connect with them.

 

Playing Maya and Jaz are Amy Revelle and Ashling O'Shea, who have great chemistry throughout the show and embody their characters brilliantly. Revelle is superb at playing Maya’s confident, self-assured persona in a fun, loveable way, while O'Shea contrasts beautifully with her trying-to-play-it-cool portrayal of Jaz, an interesting dynamic that almost flips towards the end of the play. Completing the dogging group are Sandra and Dave, played fantastically by Maria Austin and Ed Larkin as a sweet couple very much in love, and the posh, upper-class Susan and Richard, performed hilariously by Tia Dunn and lan Hallard, my favourite of their interactions being a chance encounter with their “dog-walking” Tory MP son, played to perfection by Ed Larkin. It's surprising, given their reason for meeting, that the group is actually very wholesome. Their friendship and support of one another is a really lovely theme throughout the show, and a refreshing display of healthy, fulfilling non-monogamy and unashamed queerness.

 


Like the characters themselves, Kayla Feldman's direction feels a bit messy at times, potentially due to the abridged version's scenes not flowing as well together, but shines in the more intimate moments between the characters, particularly when paired with Christina Fulcher's intimacy direction in the physical scenes where exaggerated movements and sexual sequences are used to represent the characters dogging. Rosin Jenner's set is cozy, filled with beanbags, pillows and a couple of car seats, completed expertly by Catja Hamilton's soft, warm lighting. A stand out moment of direction and lighting comes as we watch Maya recount her experience so far in the porn industry, watching her quickly walking around the stage, following each new spotlight as she's asked to do increasingly more extreme and vulgar acts, in what is also a fabulous piece of dialogue that does not shy away from explicitly describing the porn industry's misogynistic desire to push the female body to its limits for videos of violent, degrading and unpleasurable sex.

 

Puppy is undoubtedly very funny and wonderfully scandalous, but the heart of the narrative is an incredibly serious and important one about consent, female autonomy and the need to protect sex workers from the dangers of a porn industry that normalises violence against women, fetishises queer women and enables a powerful system of abuse. While I wish this production hadn't been shortened, Puppy is still an excellent exploration into queerness, community, sex work and of course, dogging.

 

Puppy plays at the King's Head Theatre until April 27th



Photos by Steve Gregson

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